Team Bus Goes Shopping Somewhere They Shouldn't
by ChandaK562
Summary: Team Bus goes shopping for a straightjacket for Coulson after the events in the season finale. Really, their base only has so many walls, and the writing is getting annoying, so what are they to do? But what store might stock straightjackets, and what if they run into someone they know there? I know I have other stories I should be writing on an updating, but when an idea hits I h
1. Chapter 1

"Skye, are you sure this is the right place?" Jemma said as she stepped out of the van and stared up at the rambling Victorian house in confusion. This looked like someone's home, not a business.

Skye looked at the directions on her phone again. "This is the address, and there's the sign. LaRues. This is it. Let's go." She started up the walk to the door, with Jemma, Fitz and Trip following behind her. She couldn't believe they were here to get a straightjacket for AC. And if it was the GH 325, how long would it be until she needed a straightjacket too?

A bell jingled as they opened the door and stepped inside.

"Skye…." Jemma's eyes went large as she took in the front room of the store. Lingerie, handcuffs and was that a display case filled with x-rated deserts?

"This isn't a medical supply store." Trip said. "Skye, I thought you talked to these people and they said…"

"The lady I talked to on the phone said they had straightjackets." Skye said with a wince. A sex store. If AC found out that she had brought Jemma and Fitz to a sex store…. She wasn't entirely sure that Fitz wasn't still a virgin. "She sounded like she was eighty. I didn't think…"

"They have food. That's good." Fitz didn't look up from the desert display as he spoke. "We can get something to go, right? Because what Koenig served last night was not desert."

Before Skye could say anything about how bad bringing home x-rated food would be, the tiniest woman she had ever seen came bustling in, tray of cookies in hand.

"Can I help you? I'm Effie LaRue." Eighty. Well, she had been right, the woman was at least eighty but apparently being a senior citizen didn't mean you were opposed to working in a sex store. And apparently being eighty didn't mean you had to dress eighty either because the little woman had red streaks running through her fluffy, grey hair.

"I called a few hours ago?" Skye said. "I was looking for a straightjacket?"

"I remember. Is it for one of you? We offer a custom fit option." Effie said as she held out the tray of cookies in response to Fitz's hungry expression.

"It's for our boss. We have his size. Regular jacket size works for a straightjacket, right?" Skye said since Jemma seemed too horrified by where she had found herself to speak, Fitz was busy eating, and Trip, he had worked with John Garrett, why was being in a sex store shocking him?

"That should do for a start." Effie said. "Straightjackets are down the hall, second door on the right. My niece is somewhere in the back dusting if you need any help. Take your time looking. There will be chocolate smores bars in a few minutes if you're hungry."

"Fitz, why don't you wait here for the bars?" Trip finally shook himself out of his shock at the store they had ended up in. "Jemma…"

"You might need help with sizing." Jemma winced, not really wanting to go any further, but feeling she had to. She followed the other two agents, keeping her eyes partially closed as they headed down the hall.

Eyes closed, even partially, not a good idea, Jemma realized a few minutes later, wandering around the house that was really much bigger than it seemed, totally lost amongst the small rooms and alcoves. But all of the merchandise…. She felt her face turning red as she ducked her head, and the next thing she knew, she was on the ground after plowing right into someone and sending them tumbling.

"I am so sorry!" Jemma exclaimed. "Are you alright? I am so sorry and…." But then the woman turned and she saw her face. Faster than she thought possible, she was on her feet and fleeing, shrieking as she went.

"Jemma?" Skye and Trip appeared in the hall in front of her, stopping her flight. "What's wrong? What happened?"

"Are you okay?" Trip asked. "You look like you just saw a ghost!"

"I did! Agent Hand! I just saw Agent Hand's ghost! She's come back to haunt us!"


	2. Chapter 2

"You saw Agent Hand's ghost?" Skye said.

Jemma nodded as she fought back tears. Agent Hand had come back to haunt them. She wasn't surprised, not really. After all, it had been a member of their team who had murdered her. And they hadn't taken any steps to recover her body or have a service for her. With the Hydra situation and Ward, and now what was happening with Director Coulson, Agent Hand had completely slipped through the cracks. Jemma felt tears slipping down her cheeks and she didn't try to hold them back now. Poor Agent Hand. She had done so much for Shield and then they had just let her slip through the cracks. It wasn't fair and it was really no wonder that she had came back to haunt them.

"Hey, it's okay." Trip said. "What happened?"

Jemma blinked, trying to pull herself together. "I was trying not to look too much at everything, and I must have taken a wrong turn because when I looked up the two of you were gone. I was trying to find you, but there are so many little rooms, I got turned around and I was still trying not to look. And then I bumped something, and she was right there! Agent Hand! She's came back to haunt us!"

"Agent Hand's haunting a sex shop. Is anyone really surprised by that?" Skye murmured. "Jemma, calm down, it's okay."

"You were trying not to look at the stuff in here, right?" Trip said. "So you were trying not to look, you bumped into someone and maybe you thought it was Agent Hand because you didn't get a good look at them. That has to be what happened."

"Agent Hand?" Fitz said as he hurried down the hall, his arms loaded down with packages and a shocked expression on his face. "You saw her too?"

"Fitz?" Skye said as she looked closer at the items he was carrying. "Why do you have ten packages of edible underwear, and is that chocolate body paint?"

"I was looking for some dip for the smores bars, and some snacks for later. Agent Hand, Jemma, you saw her too?"

"I did." Jemma said. "Back that way. Fitz, you saw her too?"

Fitz nodded. "I was just trying the chocolate, and maybe I opened one of the packs to make sure it was fresh for the ride home and then she was there! She just popped up out of nowhere and yelled at me to stop eating things I hadn't paid for! She told me to get out! She wanted to know if Coulson knew I was here! It was her!"

"It was her! She's come back to haunt us! She must blame us for her death! I knew it was her, I just knew it!" Jemma moaned.

"Calm down! Both of you calm down!" Skye told them. "Come on, we don't need to draw attention, remember? It couldn't have been Agent Hand's ghost. Fitz, you were eating. How good a look could you have gotten anyway? It had to have been another customer, or didn't Ms. LaRue say something about a niece?"

"She mentioned Coulson, though. How would the ghost have known about Coulson unless it was Agent Hand?" Fitz asked.

"Maybe we let something slip?" Trip suggested, even though he was almost sure they hadn't.

"Or maybe Agent Hand is haunting us. Maybe she blames us for her death! Or for not giving her a proper funeral!" Jemma moaned.

"Come on. She's been dead for awhile. If she was going to haunt us, wouldn't she have shown up before now?" Although maybe the store they were visiting had lead to the ghostly appearance? No, Skye was not going to let herself go down that road. That road could only lead to a permanent ghostly presence.

"Excuse me, but is there some sort of problem?" Effie called as she came down the hall. "I thought I heard shouting."

"A ghost! We saw a ghost!" Fitz exclaimed before Skye or Trip could think of some sort of cover story.

"A ghost?" Effie said. "You saw her?"

"Saw…. Wait, there is a ghost here?" Trip asked.

"There used to be an old tavern here." Effie said with a nod. "Parts of it were actually used when the house was built. The story is that the tavern keeper's daughter walked the halls of the old building, and some people have said they they spotted her in the old sections of this house, but I can't say I've ever seen anything myself." She looked closely at Fitz and Jemma. "The two of you really did see something?"

"It was horrible." Jemma murmured.

"Terrifying!" Fitz said.

"I can't say that the ghost has ever done much more than startle people before but apparently she really shook the two of you up. Why don't you come to the front and have some cookies to calm your nerves? Everything's better after cookies."

"Are the two of you okay?" Skye asked as they got into the van after a much longer stay for cookies than they had planned.

Jemma nodded, even though she still felt a cold chill just thinking of what she had seen. Agent Hand, she was sure it had been Agent Hand, but nothing else had happened the entire time they were there. Could she have been mistaken? As they pulled out of the parking lot she turned to look back at the house, and then gasped. There, going down a path in the rear, it was Agent Hand! "Drive! Quick!" She shouted as she grabbed for Fitz. It hadn't been a mistake! It hadn't been some other ghost! Agent Hand had came back to haunt them!


	3. Chapter 3

Victoria almost stumbled and fell, she was shaking so badly from pain, as she pushed the door to the carriage house open.

"Vic?" John Garrett spun and shoved the box he had been about to move back onto the shelf before hurrying over to her. "Your head?" Why was he even asking, though? He knew the problem was her head and one of the migraines that were the result of the gunshot wounds and concussion she had suffered two months before. "Let's get you in bed." He wrapped an arm around her as she swayed and he was honestly tempted to pick her up and carry her to keep her from falling before she could make it to bed. "Have you had your meds?"

She shook her head as she collapsed on the larger of the two beds set up in the rear room of the carriage house. "Too bad, too fast. Shot."

"Shot. Okay. Okay." Did he remember what the doctor Vic's aunt had called in had said about the shots he had prescribed in case of pain that didn't respond to the oral meds? Vic had only been bad enough to need them three or four times, thank heavens, but he was sure he remembered what to do. "Just close your eyes, okay? I'll get the shot for you. You'll feel better in just a few minutes." The curtains were closed, and he flipped the overhead light off after getting the shot ready. He could hear muffled sobs starting as he turned the bedside light on, and sat down on the bed. The loose skirt had been pushed to the top of her right thigh, and with a wince, he pushed the needle in and injected the medication. "Okay, you just try to rest. It should help fast. Did something set it off?"

"Coulson." Victoria murmured.

"Phil? Did he finally get around to calling your family to try to see if they knew where you were? Or to ask what your grandmother meant by what she wrote on the back of that returned condolence card?" There was irritation in John's voice but he couldn't help it. Two months and Vic's family hadn't heard a thing from Phil or from anyone else connected to Shield beyond a condolence card that Victoria's grandmother had promptly marked Return to Sender with a note on the back letting them know that there was no one dead in their family. You would think that would have been enough to get Phil curious enough to make a phone call, but there had been absolutely nothing. Phil was one of his oldest friends, but to see Vic treated this way…. He would have never thought Phil would have pulled something like this.

"His team. The science babies and the special, sparkly hacker, and the one I told you about, Trip, that was supposed to be working with you, only I guess Coulson has him now." Victoria felt tears running down her cheeks. This, she hated this, the total loss of control that hit out of the blue but on top of the migraine she couldn't fight it. "They were here! They didn't know who Aunt Effie was. They were SHOPPING!"

"Shopping? You told me about Phil's team. Are they even old enough to shop in a sex store? Aren't they around twelve? Has Phil even had the talk with them about the birds and the bees yet?"

"He might have even more science babies on his hands soon." Victoria murmured as the tears continued to flow. "Why did he do it? He acts like every person is important. He has that saving people thing and he can't even pick up a phone and call my family? He couldn't be bothered to look for me?"

Her speech was already starting to slur as the meds took effect, but the pain in her voice was obvious. "I don't know what's wrong with Phil." John said. "I can understand about me, and about Jasper but what he's pulling with you…."

"Blames me for the mission I sent his people on. No extraction plan. Test. Felix said he was acting funny. It was just a test. He always checks and triple checks things for his people. Didn't this time. Just blamed me."

"If Phil blames you, I'm going to have a long talk with Phil." John told her. "It's okay, Vic. It's going to be okay."

"I wouldn't let people die. Not for something like that. He blames me. He didn't read the mission reports. Why does he blame me? I wasn't going to leave them there. I had a plan to get them out! He was supposed to read the report! He was supposed to read the report! Felix said he thought something was wrong so I was testing him but I wasn't going to leave his people there! I just needed to know how bad it was, before he actually got someone killed! They blame me. Phil blames me and his team blames me and I think even Melinda blames me and I was just trying to keep people safe!" Victoria was sobbing harder now, any control she had gone even as she started to drift off. "I was just trying to keep people safe. Why don't they see that? Why did they do this?"

"I wish I knew." One good thing about Vic's head hurting bad enough to need the shot. She wouldn't remember breaking down. That seemed to bother her even more than the pain and the other physical side effects of the concussion. "It's going to be okay, Vic. You've got me and Jasper and Felix and your aunt and the rest of your family. We know what you're really like, even if Phil apparently doesn't anymore. It's going to be okay."


	4. Chapter 4

John had undressed Victoria as she drifted in her drugged sleep, and threaded limp limbs into the sleeves of her nightgown before tucking the blankets and quilt on the bed firmly around her. Her injuries were getting better, he knew she was getting better. Most of the time she was like his old Vic, but seeing her like this, curled into a tight ball like an injured and frightened child….

"What happened?" Jasper called as he pushed the door open and came in. "Effie said there was some sort of problem." He frowned as he looked at Victoria. "Her head again? I thought the migraines were getting better."

"It was bad enough that she needed the shot." John said. "Did you see the people who came in?"

"I was in the kitchen. One of them devoured an entire plate of smores bars and over a dozen cookies. Who were they?"

"That's what I would like to know." Effie said as she came in with Felix following behind her. "They saw Tori. I had to make up some story about a ghost haunting the place to explain her away. They obviously knew who she was but the certainly didn't seem happy to see her. So who are they?"

"Phil's people according to Vic. Well, Phil's people and Trip, who was working with alien me."

"Phil Coulson?" Effie said with a frown. "Agent Coulson who hasn't done a thing for poor Victoria, who hasn't taken five minutes in the last two months to contact her family to try to find out what's going on?" She looked down at her sleeping niece, and then at John and Jasper. If they hadn't been there… She would never forget the morning they had shown up on her doorstep, all of them ragged and battered, poor Victoria so dizzy and weak from the injury to her head that they were carrying her. After what they had done, giving them a safe haven and taking in Felix as well after they retrieved him from the hospital was the least she could have done. "I shouldn't have given them all of those cookies."

"It was just the kids. It's not their fault that Phil's…." John shook his head, not sure what to say. Not contacting Vic's family after getting that condolence card back with the message on the back…. Phil had to know something was going on. The next logical step would be to contact her family again, to try to find out what had happened and where Victoria was. Her grandmother's message made it pretty obvious they knew she was alive, so contacting them again was the obvious thing to do. But two months and not a word from him. John still couldn't believe it. What was wrong with Phil, and with Melinda too? "What were his people doing here anyway?"

"Buying a straightjacket, size large. They said it was for their boss. I certainly think a straightjacket is fitting for him after what he's done." Effie said as she reached out and gently brushed a few strands of red back from Victoria's pale face. "How bad was her head?"

"Bad enough to need the shot." John said. "They were getting a straightjacket for Phil?"

"They said it was for their boss, and from what I've heard about Agent May, large would never fit her." Effie said.

"No, Melinda's small. So Phil's needing a straightjacket. I wish I could say I was surprised but with the mess he made of things with Vic…. Do you think they believed you when you said the place was haunted? I mean, do you think you convinced them they didn't really see Vic?" Just seeing them had triggered a migraine. They really didn't need them snooping around further.

"I hope so. They left anyway, and I called Doc and he spotted their van heading out of town." She paused, before speaking. "I know you were thinking about contacting Shield, to tell them what happened, and to see about finding that boy of yours."

"Grant, yeah." And at this point, Grant was the only reason he would even consider contacting Shield after how they had treated Vic. He couldn't believe that the boy he had rescued fifteen years ago could have done what Vic said he did, shooting her in cold blood, so the only thing he could figure was that Grant had been taken by the same aliens that had grabbed him and Jasper. "I'll find Grant. We don't need Phil for that." And when he found the kid…. Vic thought he, Jasper and Felix had been fussing over her, that was going to be nothing compared to what Grant would do. He would have her tucked up in bed and wrapped in cotton fluff for the next year probably, and would be hovering asking if he could bring her anything for her poor head or if she needed her pillows fluffed, and to rest and not to move between apologies for being kidnapped by the alien who hurt her. He couldn't wait to see that. And he was going to see that. He would find Grant and all of this was going to be okay. Find Grant and get Vic better.

"So we're not going to try to contact them, now that we're sure they're still out there?" Felix asked. He had some questions that he would like to ask Phil too, in addition to John's planned loud and angry questions about Victoria's abandonment. He was not pleased about being left in a hospital with no means of paying the bill or idea of what was going on. If John and Jasper hadn't shown up and collected him when they did, despite the rather unorthodox method of getting him out of the building via a laundry cart that he was sure John was to blame for, he would probably be in jail.

John shook his head. "If they could treat Vic like this…. We'll manage without them. We've managed for over two months without them. We don't need them now."


	5. Chapter 5

Shrieking. Someone was shrieking. John noticed that first, as he woke, and then a moment later blinked his eyes open, years of training bringing him fully awake almost instantly. Naked. He was naked. Naked and in the shattered remains of some sort of container. Glass was everywhere, along with some sort of gooey liquid that was covering his body as well as the floor.

Shoes. He saw a pair of shoes covered with purple ooze rushing past the container he was hidden beneath, and then there was something there. He didn't know what it was, but it was big and brown, and before he could think more about whether this was a good plan or the worst one in the world, he had reached out and grabbed for whatever the thing was's feet. He jerked back as a frightening face with a beak like some sort of mollusk hit the ground in front of him, and then there was a loud crash, and something slammed down, blocking his view all together.

"Hey, is there someone under there?" He heard a voice call a minute later.

"Jasper? Is that you?" That sounded like Jasper, but what was he doing here, wherever here was? About the only thing he knew was that he wasn't back at the Triskellion, awaiting Vic's arrival to yell at him for missing the budget meeting.

"John?" Jasper picked his way around the large piece of metal shelving he had managed to bring down on the alien who had been chasing him. Flat. It was flat, and it looked like its head was detached from his body. He hoped that meant it was dead. He grabbed hold of what looked like a metal and glass container that it sounded like the voice had came from beneath and pulled. John, he was right it was John and…. "You're naked. What are you doing here without clothes?"

"Nothing enjoyable, I can reassure you." John got to his feet and then blinked, thinking something was wrong with his eyes. "Why are you purple?"

"That thing was BASTING me! If the sauce wasn't slippery, I would be in an oven right now!" Was that a crate filled with clothes? Human sized clothes? Jasper was more than a little afraid of what that many human sized clothes in the lair of an alien that had just tried to prepare him for supper could mean, but he dug through the items anyway, and tossed a turtleneck and a pair of pants he thought might fit to John.

"If it's any comfort, you smell delicious." John said as he pulled on the pants.

"It isn't any comfort, thank you very much. What are you doing here?"

"I don't know." John's voice was muffled for a moment as he got the shirt on. "The last thing I remember was being in medical at the Triskellion waiting for Vic to come and tear me a new one for missing the budget meeting. You know, she said I was going to be in big trouble if I missed that meeting, but she didn't say anything about alien abductions. I might have tried a little harder to make it to the meeting if I knew an alien was going to grab me if I didn't show up." John picked his way through the glass and over to Jasper, sighing when he spotted a pair of boots that looked like they might fit. "How mad is she?" He had apparently been abducted by an alien. That had to mean he had been gone for awhile. Vic wasn't going to be happy.

"Budget meeting?" Jasper said with a puzzled look on his face. "Do you mean the budget meeting you missed because you fell down the stairs and broke your leg?"

"Yeah, because I took the stairs to delay getting to the meeting, and I wasn't watching where I was going because I was trying to text Grant to call me halfway through and claim an emergency so I could get out of there." And then something hit him. His leg didn't hurt, and he was moving fine. "Jasper, why…."

"John, the budget meeting was two years ago. You don't remember anything after that? What about New York?"

"New York?" John asked in confusion.

"The alien invasion of New York?"

"We had an alien invasion?" John said. "Well, an alien invasion besides this one? One alien still counts as in invasion, right?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe. You don't remember New York?"

"I remember the budget meeting, and falling down the stairs because I was trying to get a text to go through and missed that someone had been mopping. Two years?" John shook his head. "That was two years ago? And you people didn't notice I was gone for two years?"

"That's because you weren't gone. There was someone there who looked exactly like you. We need to get out of here and get in touch with Nick. I think that thing, whatever it is, might be some sort of shapeshifter."

"Shapeshifter?" But hadn't he read plenty of stories with things like that? He would think about it later. Two years? How could he have been gone two years? And if an alien had somehow taken his place…. "Vic! One of those things took my place, it didn't…." If anything happened to Vic, he would never forgive himself. And then there was Grant, but his boy was working more on his own now, and if that thing that had taken his place had his memories he would know how to deal with him. But Vic…

"She was okay, at least she was right before I went off to chase those bank robbers." Jasper said. At least without an alien hot on his heels, it was easier to find a door that would hopefully lead them out of there.

They were almost through the second room full of equipment that would have the scientists drooling for months when they heard footsteps that sent them dodging for cover. Neither of them had a weapon, but they armed themselves with the nearest and heaviest equipment that they could lift before ducking out of sight.

"I have another one for memory extraction and processing." The alien called as he came in, human tossed over a shoulder.

John's eyes went wide as he caught sight of the hair, falling and blocking the view of the face, but he knew that hair, dark with red streaks. The alien had his best friend in its claws and she wasn't moving, wasn't trying to fight back or…. He was moving before he had time to think and Jasper was as well. He wasn't sure how they did it, but the alien was on the ground within seconds, and apparently the thing Jasper had grabbed was some sort of alien version of a wielding torch, because the thing's head was on fire.

"Vic?" John dropped to the ground beside her. Still, she was much too still, and she hadn't made a sound even though the way she had fallen to the ground had to have hurt. "Vic?" He reached out and rolled her over onto her back as carefully as he could. Her eyes were closed and her skin was deathly white. "Vic?"

"Is that a bullet hole?" Jasper joined him on the ground at Victoria's side. It looked like a bullet hole in her blouse and there was blood all over the side of her head. "That looks like a bullet hole." If Victoria had been shot…. Where were they anyway? A gunshot wound, and was she breathing? It didn't look to him like she was breathing. "John?" If she wasn't breathing, or worse, if her heart had stopped, unless she got advanced help fast, she wouldn't have a chance and were they even somewhere where getting advanced help was a possibility?

"Vic? Baby girl?" Calm down. Calm down, he ordered himself but it was his best friend lying there, deathly still and cold. No, he shook his head and forced himself to focus. Pale, she was pale but her color wasn't that bad, wasn't like it would be if she was…. This was fixable. He could fix this. "Vic?" He reached out and tilted her head back with one hand on her forehead and raised her chin with the other. leaning over her and hoping to feel some sort of response. "Vic, it's okay. It's okay. Come on, baby girl, take a breath for me, okay? Vic?" He was almost ready to try mouth to mouth when his pleas were rewarded as she suddenly gasped for air.

"I'll see if I can find some blankets or something else we can use. Is she bleeding any?" Jasper asked. The blood on her head looked matted and clotted, one good thing if she wasn't still actively bleeding anyway.

"I don't know. Vic?" Her eyelashes were fluttering. "It's okay, baby girl. It's me and Jasper. You're safe. Open your eyes, okay?" He didn't dare move his hands from how they were positioned, keeping her airway open, until she was awake, but that bullet hole in her blouse, he didn't see any blood, but from the position, if it had penetrated, he didn't want to think of the potential bleeding internally that she could have going on. "Vic?"

Then her eyes were open and full of a terror he had never seen before and she was moaning and trying to pull away from his hands and….

Moaning. Not… John's eyes snapped open and he realized he had been dreaming, but the moaning was very real. "Vic?"

Jasper sat up on the other side of the bed and flipped on the bedside light, adjusting it so it wasn't shining directly at the bed where they had been sleeping, Victoria snuggled between the two of them, Felix in the other bed on the opposite side of the room.

"Sick. Going to be sick." Victoria whimpered, keeping her eyes tightly shut to block out the light and to try to hold back the tears that were fighting to fall.

"I'll get the shot." Felix called as Jasper grabbed for the nearby basin just in time. If her head was bad enough for Victoria to start throwing up, and thankfully she hadn't been that bad since his rescue from the hospital and joining their little group, there was no way that she was going to be able to swallow any medicine.

"Sorry." She whispered as she felt the sting of the needle in her thigh. "So sorry."

"Hey, it's not your fault." Jasper reassured her. "The doctor said it might take awhile for your head to be completely better. It's okay."

"Why did they do it?" Victoria murmured as she felt the drug starting to take effect and pull her into blissful, pain free unconsciousness. "Just sent a condolence card instead of looking for me. Didn't come even though grandma sent the card back saying I wasn't dead. Probably were happier thinking I was dead." And then the tears were flowing down her cheeks even as she drifted off to sleep.

"I don't know what Phil could be thinking." Felix shook his head as Jasper went to empty the basin in the small bathroom and John got Victoria tucked under the covers.

"I don't know either, but I do know that this better be the last we see of him and his people. Vic doesn't need to go through anything else thanks to them." John said as he gently stroked her forehead. "She's suffered enough."


End file.
